Poor Radio reception, 03 STD TD5 Help

[Owen]

My disco has been back a couple of times trying to get radio reception of anacceptable standard. I have never had such crap reception in any vehicle and LR are now telling me that its ecause the Radio is tuned for Europe. I have this thing that "fit for purpose" in a consumer sale should apply here and this is definitely not fit for the Aussie market. Before I start going down the line of asking for a new radio that can cope with Australian conditions, has anyone elso out there had a similar experience and what has you outcome been. Thanks in advance.

[defute]

Hi Owen,

sorry to hear about your problem. Generally this is not an area that the Disco II suffers a problem.

Generally, bad radio reception issues arrise from aerial problems, a poor earth/ground for the radio head unit or a fauty reciever unit within the head unit.

The Disco II uses an aerial that is mounted into the right hand rear load space window glass - it looks like a demister wire. This wire is of a tuned length to provide the optimum signal pick-up in each market. In the roof above the glass (concealed by the roof lining) is an aerial amplifier which is used to enhance the signal. From here, a co-axial cable runs straight into the rear of the head unit.

Is you vehicle fitted with window tint? A lot of window tint films contain a metal base to provide their blacking-out effect. If this is the case, the benifits of the tuned length aerial wire are lost. This type of window tint will consequently effect your radio reception.

To test for a fault in the aerial system, it is possible to remove the radio head unit and plug in a standard (external vehicle type) radio aerial. If this improves the reception, it confims a fault in this side of the system.

The radios fitted to Disco IIs in Australia are the same as those fitted in the UK. It may pay to ask your dealer to swap a head unit from one of their demo vehicles to rule out a problem with your unit's internal reciever.

It is also sometimes possible that particular stations in certain areas are not conducive to fantastic radio reception. To establish whether your vehicle has an isolated problem or not, it may pay to take another Disco II with the same radio to the same places that you suffer an issue and compare them.

Good luck.

[bigbugga]

This is a new one on me.

I have a 97 Disco with the anttena in the rear glass, and also have high quality window tint with the metal film.

Stock standard radio has never given me a day trouble, even travveling up north here it worked fine, picked up stations before my Dad's Patrol would.

Work on the dealer, has to be a problem somewhere.

Let us know how you go.

[Bytemrk]

BB is Right Owen...

Keep the pressure on the dealer .. something has to be wrong. I have a D2 and the radio is great.


Sounds to me like the "radio is tuned for Europe" story is a first class load of cods... more like they haven't worked out whats wrong but don't want to admit it....

[RichardK]

Mine had the same problem when I picked it up and after removing the head unit and some indiscriminate fiddling it worked properly and has ever since. We don't know what it was but suspect a bad aerial connection at the rear of the radio.